Des Le Premier Jour- a snowbaz fic

1

I know Baz is happy with me. He's still kind of a sarcastic prick-you can take the gay vampire out of the rich socialite family, but you can't take the rich socialite family out of the gay vampire. But he's a regular sweetheart to Penny and I, and he's always nice to my friends from work or uni.

I'm lucky to have him. Aside from Penny, of course, he's the most supportive person I've ever had in my life.

I didn't talk until I was 11, when I went to Watford. Even then, I mostly spoke in mumbles and stutters. It got better with time, but I'll probably never be a huge talker. I think far more than I speak. Sometimes I don't think at all. Sometimes, I'm just emotion, and nothing less.

Trisha, my magickal psychologist, says I probably have selective mutism brought on by trauma. When bad things happen, I shut down and don't say anything.

Since the Mage died- since I killed him- I haven't said much. I've got a lot of words in my head, but I feel stupid putting them out into the air.

Baz doesn't try to push me to talk. He's content with just holding my hand while I stare straight in front of me, looking at nothing.

Trisha told me that I'm lucky to have him. I know. I feel bad that I assumed the worst in him for so many years.

When I do try to speak, sometimes it just comes out wrong. I stumble over words, or they all just sneeze out of my mouth. Sometimes I say what I'm thinking instead of what I need to say.

One time, Baz was at mine and Penny's flat. I had spent that day staring at this book Penny told me to read, about this woman who uses her old phone to talk to a past incarnation of her husband. Penny was trying to figure out if it was a true story, or just Normal fiction. She bought an old rotary phone off Ebay and had cast a ton of spells on it to see if she could get it to work like in the story, but all it had done was spark and emit bloodcurdling shrieks instead of a dial tone. We put it out on our balcony so the house wouldn't smell like smoke.

It had been an especially hard day. I was thinking about how I never said goodbye to Agatha. I hadn't meant to hurt her feelings at all. But she hadn't even tried to talk to me after she left for California. I was afraid she wouldn't ever forgive me. I couldn't stop worrying about it. I couldn't even focus on reading. I just stared at the page, at the same sentence ("I think I can live without you, but it won't be any kind of life.") for hours.

Baz was in the kitchen, making coffee- pumpkin mocha breve. I tried to call his name, but I was thinking about the dialogue in the book, so instead of saying "Baz," I yelled "FUCK!" Baz laughed at me until he was crying. I realized that it was the first thing I had said all day. I started laughing, too. Then Baz said "maybe English just isn't your thing." He laughed some more.

That gave me an idea. "Baz," I said, "do you think you could teach me French?"

"Shit, Snow, I haven't practiced in months... I can try, though."

He did try. And I tried. By the end of the week, I could have an awkward conversation. Soon, I could conjugate verbs and speak complex sentences.

I love speaking French. It's not my first language, so I have to think through every word. Baz and I don't know very many other people who speak it (even though we live in Europe- I guess that shows how secluded we are), so we only talk in it to each other- like our own secret language. When I get nervous about ordering food, Baz will ask me what I want in French and then order it for me in English. In turn, I talk him down in French when he's angry or upset. When we fall asleep together, the last words I hear are "je t'aime, Simon." And now, I'll get to hear that every night.

Baz should be here in a couple hours. He'll be tired from moving all of his stuff, so I feel like I should make dinner. I can only make two things with my skills and ingredients- pasta with salad dressing, or cheese quesadillas using tortillas that are probably expired. I text Baz and ask which he wants. Then I start cleaning out the bathroom. I need to make room for a lot of hair products.

Baz

By the time I was 15, I truly believed that Simon Snow and I weren't going to make it out of our school years. But now, I'm packing my things into cardboard boxes-because we're going to live together. And my phone is chiming, and he wants to know if I want pasta or quesadillas for dinner, and he's put a little heart at the end, because he can do that, because we survived and the reward we get for surviving is being able to show that we care about each other.

Aleister Crowley, if my mother could see me now...Fiona says she'd be proud of me. Perhaps she would. Perhaps she would have me burned at the stake. Guess I'll never know- unless she shows up the next time the Veil lifts and tells me that I made a huge mistake by not setting myself on fire when I had the chance. I'll just have to wait and see, I suppose.

I text Simon back- "don't bother cooking. I've still got leftovers from monday. See you soon!" and I also add a little heart, because I get to do that now.

My list of things to pack is written on my wrist. I still need my box of Useless Inherited Shit- a bunch of magickal artefacts that were passed down in my family. I can't sell or donate them anywhere because most of them are dangerous and illegal.

The box is in a closet in the hallway of the flat that I currently (now formerly, I suppose) share with my aunt Fiona. It's on the top shelf of the closet- a two-foot chest of deep green velvet and mahogany that matches my violin case. Standing on my tiptoes, I pull the box out of the closet, and something hisses-probably one of the jars of thick, gloopy liquid that I don't like to think about. It could also be the disembodied man's hand, although I haven't heard it speak in years.

As I pull the box down, something else falls out of the closet and hits me in the face. It's a small, but weighty. I'll have a bruise later.

It's a tape recorder. Fiona told me she got rid of it.

I call Simon. He picks up on the first ring-he's on his phone too much. 

"Baz, darling, hellooo" Simon trills. I can imagine him laying on the floor or the couch, his legs splayed out awkwardly, wings and tail twitching absently, not doing what he's supposed to be doing.

"Hi, Snow," I say, "I have a question-"

"Well, fuck me!" Simon says, with absolute confidence. "Shit, wait, I mean hit me up-but I was thinking- of course, if you want-nevermind, sorry, what?"

"You egg..."

"What do you want?"

"Do you remember Phillipa Stainton?"

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Here's chapter 1 y'all
Yeet skeet I'm trying my best